Signing the Constitution of the United States
Brit-Am – “In the article below "Jewish Roots of the American Constitution" by Professor Paul Eidelberg it is explained how the original ruling principles of the USA are derived from the Bible. This apparently was often after the non-Jewish formulators had made themselves familiar with the traditional Jewish understanding of the Biblical sources. Similar claims have been made concerning English Common Law and related institutions. We (as distinct perhaps from the author) would attribute at least some aspect of this phenomenon to a sub-conscious ancestral recollection. Instead of the adjective "Jewish" in "Jewish Roots" perhaps "Israelite" or "Hebraic" or "Biblical" would have been more appropriate?
Nevertheless, "Jewish" is what the author chose and it is his article. Not only that but "Jewish" does serve to highlight the fact that not only is the West indebted to the Jews for transmitting the Bible. It also has had, and still has, need of the Jews in understanding how to apply Biblical principles. Professor Paul Eidelberg may well consider the subject matter of what is described below as pointing to cultural indebtedness on the part of Americans to the Jewish People. While we too agree with this, we think it also reflects a striving to express a common origin while not necessarily having been consciously aware of it.
Introduction
The Constitution of the United States
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Prof. Paul Eidelberg – “The Republic prescribed by the American Constitution is the longest lasting free government in history. America saved Europe from tyranny three times in the twentieth century, and today it is the only solid bastion of freedom against totalitarian Islam. What is not generally known, however, is that the American Constitution was rooted in ethical and political principles whose source is none other than the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.
Protestant social revolutionary reformers, especially the Puritans of New England, saw in the Torah models for modern government. The Puritans adopted or adapted Torah principles and values in organizing their own colonial governments. Many New England divines agreed with Harvard President Samuel Langdon, who said, in his 1775 election sermon:
Harvard President Samuel Langdon – “The Jewish government … if considered merely in a civil view, was a perfect republic.”
Yale President Rev. Ezra Stiles, who conversed with rabbis, apparently agreed with Langdon that the American Constitution was based on the Ten Commandments.
Historical Background
The Bill of Rights of the Congress of the United States
Although many of the framers of the American Constitution were not devout, their political mentality was shaped in universities whose curriculum was based very much on Jewish ideas. Accordingly, this essay will be divided into two parts. The first part will show how Judaism, in particular the Five Books of Moses influenced higher education in 17th and 18th century America. The second part will examine the institutions prescribed in the American Constitution and show their roots in Jewish laws and principles.
No nation has been more profoundly influenced by the "Old Testament" than America. Many of America's early statesmen and educators were schooled in Hebraic civilization. The second president of the United States, John Adams, a Harvard graduate, had this to say of the Jewish people:
John Adams – “The Jews have done more to civilize men than any other nation.... They are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited the earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily than any other Nation, ancient or modern.[ii]
The curriculum at Harvard, like those of other early American colleges and universities, was designed by learned and liberal men of "Old Testament" persuasion. Harvard President Increase Mather (1685-1701) was an ardent Hebraist (as were his predecessors, Henry Dunster and Charles Chauncey). Mather's writings contain numerous quotations from the Talmud as well as from the works of Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Maimonides and other classic Jewish commentators.
Yale University president Ezra Stiles readily discoursed with visiting rabbinical authorities on the Mishna and Talmud. At his first public commencement at Yale (1781), Stiles delivered an oration on Hebrew literature written originally in Hebrew. Hebrew and the study of Hebraic laws and institutions were an integral part of Yale's as well as of Harvard's curriculum.
Much the same may be said of King's College (later Columbia University), William and Mary, Rutgers, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown University. Hebrew learning was then deemed a basic element of liberal education. Samuel Johnson, first president of King's College (1754-1763), expressed the intellectual attitude of his age when he referred to Hebrew as "essential to a gentleman's education."
This attitude was not merely academic. On May 31, 1775, almost on the eve of the American Revolution, Harvard president Samuel Langdon, addressing the Congress of Massachusetts Bay, declared:
Harvard President Samuel Langdon - "Every nation … has a right to set up over itself any form of government which to it may appear most conducive to its common welfare. The civil polity of Israel is doubtless an excellent general model." (emphasis added).
The Higher Law doctrine of the Declaration of Independence is rooted in the Torah, which proclaims “The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and appeals to the “Supreme Judge” and “Providence.” Even though Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration, had reservations about the Hebrew Bible, he supported Baptist churches and framed the Declaration with a view to galvanizing a bible-reading public in support of the American Revolution.
During the colonial and constitution-making period, the Americans, especially the Puritans, adopted and adapted various Hebraic laws for their own governance. The legislation of New Haven, for example, was based on the premise that "the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, and as they are a fence to the moral law, being neither ... ceremonial, nor ha[ving] any reference to Canaan, shall ... generally bind all offenders, till they be branched out into particulars hereafter.” Thirty-eight of seventy-nine statutes in the New Haven Code of 1665 derived their authority from the Hebrew Bible. The laws of Massachusetts were based on the same premise.
The fifteen Capital Laws of New England included the "Seven Noahide Laws" of the Torah, or what may be termed the seven universal laws of morality. Six prohibit idolatry, blasphemy, murder, robbery, adultery, and eating flesh from a living animal, while the seventh requires the establishment of courts of justice. Such courts are obviously essential to any society based on the primacy of reason or persuasion rather than passion or intimidation.
The seven universal laws of morality (together with their particular branches) comprised a "genial orthodoxy." This genial orthodoxy transcends whatever social or economic distinctions exist among men: it holds all men equal before the law. By so doing it places constraints on governors and governors alike and thereby habituated Americans to the rule of law. As a further consequence, this ancient Hebraic orthodoxy dissolved or subordinated many ethnic differences among immigrants in the new world. It moderated the demands of various groups, helped coordinate their diverse interests and talents, and thereby contributed to America's growth and prosperity.
Now, without minimizing the influence of such philosophers as Locke and Montesquieu on the framers of the American Constitution, America may rightly be deemed the first and only nation that was explicitly founded on the Seven Noahide Laws of the Torah. Indeed, the legislation of the several states comprising the Federal Union embodied these laws—including the prohibitions against blasphemy and adultery—well into the nineteenth century. It should also be noted that the constitutions of eleven of the original thirteen states made provision for religious education. Some even had religious qualifications for office.
Strange as it may seem, the Seven Noahide Laws were explicitly incorporated in Public Law 102-14, which established March 26, 1991 as "Education Day"! What presumably saves this Congressional joint resolution from violating the First Amendment is its silence about the Hebraic origin of the Noahide code. Here I must digress for a moment and say a word about the First Amendment.
The First Amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion …” This clause is now misunderstood. It was intended not to prevent Congress from enacting laws supportive of religion, but to prohibit Congress from establishing a state or national religion.
In his “Farewell Address,” President George Washington declared:
George Washington – “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports…. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious principle.”
Incidentally, the theme of Washington’s Farewell Address is national unity. National unity, he believed, requires national morality, a precondition of which is religion. Religion and morality counter man’s natural inclination to self-indulgence and his tendency to be preoccupied with the immediate gratification of his own desires. Religion and morality foster self-restraint and consideration of others. Far more than secular humanism, religion inspires men with reverence, with deference to wisdom, with concern for posterity. But these ideas are Jewish ideas, rooted in the Seven Noahide Laws.
The Institutions Prescribed by the American Constitution
The House of Representatives represents 435 districts of the United States, where the people of each district elect one person to represent their views and interests. The idea of district elections is implicit in the Torah. “Select for yourselves men who are wise, understanding, and known to your tribes and I will appoint them as your leaders” (Deut. 1:13). The word “election” obviously comes from the word “elect,” and the “elect” means men of high intellectual and moral character.
Exodus 18:19 states: “... seek out from among all the people men with leadership ability, God-fearing men--men of truth who hate injustice.”
Similar qualifications are prescribed in the original constitutions Maryland, Massachusetts , New Hampshire , and Rhode Island. This is what the word “election” means. It is not a democratic but an aristocratic term! So, each tribe must select the best men to be their representatives. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch comments that;
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch - “Each tribe (shevet) is to choose out of its own midst men whose character can only be known by their lives [hence whose character] is known only to those who have associated with them.” This is the biblical source of residential requirements for Representatives and Senators in the United States. Also, what is here called a shevet was called a district after the Second Temple.[iii]
Moreover, the idea of district elections conforms to the Jewish law of “agency” (Kiddushin 59a). This law synthesizes the “delegate” and “trustee” concept of representation prevalent in the non-Jewish democratic world. Whereas the delegate concept binds a representative to the instructions of his constituents, the trustee concept allows him to judge whether adherence to these instructions, when additional knowledge or new circumstances intervene, will harm his constituents’ immediate and/or long-term interests.
Finally, it is a principle of Jewish law that “No legislation should be imposed on the public unless the majority can conform to it” (Avoda Zara 36a). This obviously requires legislators to consider or consult the opinions of their constituents. Hence representative democracy can be readily assimilated to Judaism simply by adding that representatives must be “men who are wise, and understanding.” This would make for a “high-toned” or aristocratic democracy, or a universal aristocracy. (Bear in mind that Israel is supposed to be a “Nation of Kohanim,” meaning a nation of noblemen.)
The Senate
The Senate represents the 50 states of the Federal Union; it therefore represents the Federal principle. But the idea of federalism goes back to the Torah and the twelve tribes. Each tribe had its own distinct identity, its own governor and its own judicial system.
The Presidency
Unlike Israel, which has a Plural Executive or Cabinet consisting of a prime minister and other ministers representing different political parties in the Knesset, the United States has a Unitary Executive, namely, the President. Of course, the President has a Cabinet, but its members cannot hold any other office and they are wholly responsible to the President, not to any political party.
Now it so happens that a Unitary Executive is a Torah principle! Thus, when Moses told Joshua to consult the elders when he was about to lead the Jews across the Jordan, God countermanded Moses: there can only be one leader in a generation. And if you look at tractate Sanhedrin 8a, you will see that Jewish law opposes collective leadership. Nor is this all.
Just as a President of the United States must be a native-born American and not a naturalized citizen, so a king of Israel must be born of a Jewish mother and not a ger or convert.
The Supreme Court
Just as the American Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the American Constitution, so the Great Sanhedrin is the final interpreter of the Jewish Constitution, the Torah. So we see that the original American Constitution was very much rooted in Torah Judaism—far more, by the way, than Israel’s system of government!”
Footnotes by BibleSearchers Reflections
The inhabitants of the Thirteen Original Colonies of the United States were colonial citizens of Great Britain. According to the seminal investigation by Orthodox Jewish Researcher, Yair Davidiy of Brit-Am, along with other investigators, the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel originally were exiled to the Land of Media and lived in the mountainous regions of Khurasan today located in Northern Iran, Eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan. What research has now documented, almost all of these tribes migrated from that land known as Media and traversed across the Northern sector of the Black Sea.
By the 3rd to 2nd century BCE, the Lost Tribes of Israel began entering into the forested by their travels up the Danube River, and settled in the non-populated regions of Northern Europe, then called Gaul. They included the Cymrics, the Celtics, the Vikings of the North in the Scandinavian countries, the Cimmerians, and the Royal Scythians from the Steppes of Southern Russia.
Later more waves of these Lost Israelites arrived as the Germanic Tribes of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Vandals ending in the 4th century CE. By that time most of the Northern Regions of Northern Europe (Gaul) claimed ancestry to the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel.
The Northern Tribes of Israel included also the descendants of the Tribe of Joseph, who for his righteousness was given a double portion of the tribal land inheritance through his son, Manasseh and Ephraim. Though Manasseh was the oldest the tribal birthright was deliberately given to the younger brother, Ephraim by his grandfather, the Patriarch Jacob, and through his name, at the time of the end, all the Lost Tribes of Israel would someday be identified as Ephraimites.
Parts of the later arriving Germanic tribes were two notable ones, the Engels and the Sacae-Suni. The Engels later became known as the Angles and the Sacae-Suni as the Sakkis became known as the Saxons of Germany, living in their ancestral homeland of Saxony. The Engels later became known as the English, through the conquering of the Isle of Britannia by the Anglo-Saxons.
The Engel/Angle/Ephraim name was derived from the Hebrew meaning of Engel meaning “bull”, the tribal ensign banner of the Tribe of Ephraim. The Sakki/Saxons were known as the “sons of Isaac”. With the linkage between the Angles and the Saxons into the Anglo-Saxons, this iconic linkage of these ancient Israelite peoples who eventually became the imperial rulers of the largest Empire of the world, the British Empire.
From the loins of Great Britain and the Cymric, Celtic and Anglo-Saxons tribes upon that island, came the imperial colonies of America, Canada, South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and many small island countries. Here were origins of the ancestral “Fathers” of the American Revolution and the forefathers of the future United States of America, the children and descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel from the Tribe of Ephraim, the son of Joseph.
Notes:
[1] This section of this essay is based on Abraham Katsh, The Biblical Heritage of American Democracy (New York: KTAV, 1977).
[2] Cited in Pathways to the Torah (Jerusalem: Aish HaTorah Publications, 1988), p. A6.2.
[3] For a detailed analysis of Israel’s political system, see Paul Eidelberg, Jewish Statesmanship: Lest Israel Fall (Ariel Center for Policy Research 2000; University Press of America, 2002).
Source: The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy (in Israel)
Source: The Jewish Encyclopedia
Credited and Written by Prof. Paul Eidelberg, founder and president of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.
Credit to Yair Davidiy – “Jewish Roots of the American Constitution” – Brit-Am, the Website for the Lost Tribes of Israel Movement